Sexual predators in our own county: Ages 12, 13

MoonHowler

The predators are ages 12 and 13.  What kind of monster children do something like this.  An 11 year old girl was  sexually assaulted and sodomized in her own backyard in Woodbridge.  The boys are in the juvenile detention home.

So we have two rapists on our hands, getting an early start in life.  The girl will probably be scarred for life and the boys?  What does a society do with boys who are sexual predators at ages 12 and 13?   Do we imprison them?  They can’t go into a general population prison.  They are too young.  Are there juvenile prisons for young sexual predators?  There is no cure for being a sexual predator.

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Tea Party mentality vanquished by the BOCS 2014

MoonHowler

Budget time is always a contentious time of year.  This year was particularly awful.  It didn’t have to be that way.  The county tax rate was set at $1.148.  It probably should have been much higher to start bringing some of our deficiencies like class size and first responders into line.  But it wasn’t.  We should be glad that it is as high as it is.  The schools are still short several million dollars.

I am not sure why the notion that officials  need to “cut spending” is so popular amongst some people.  I live in this area because I want better than average services.  I hate tea party mentality.  I also don’t feel that I am over taxed.   “Cut spending” is a bumper sticker slogan.  Prince William has been so lean for so many years, “cut spending” just sounds stupid.

What particularly peeved me this time is the number of people who live in far more expensive houses than mine who whined about taxes and then tried to do it on MY behalf.  In fact, my neighborhood was cited by name.  For starters, it isn’t a poor neighborhood.  It is an older neighborhood.  There is a huge difference.  A lot of people who live near me have grown children.   We aren’t utilizing the schools.  We do want fast response time if we need the police, fire or rescue.  We want our streets maintained, swept, and the weeds killed that are growing out of the cracks in the road and sidewalks.  We want adequate lighting.  There are no street lights in my community.

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Legal killing, Oklahoma style: Another botched execution…

MoonHowler

lethal injection

Washingtonpost.com:

An Oklahoma inmate who was supposed to be executed Tuesday instead died of a heart attack after the execution was botched, state officials said.

Clayton Lockett’s execution Tuesday night was halted after about 20 minutes due to an issue with a vein, the Associated Press reported. Not long after Lockett was deemed unconscious from the first of three drugs, he began “writhing on the gurney,” according to the Associated Press. He was declared dead 43 minutes after the execution began.

Lockett and Charles F. Warner were both supposed to be executed Tuesday night, Lockett at 6 p.m. and Warner at 8 p.m. After the botched execution, Warner’s execution has been stayed for two weeks. Lockett was convicted of shooting a teenager and watching as she was buried alive; Warner was convicted of raping and murdering his girlfriend’s 11-month-old baby.

The attorney for Warner had criticized the use of an experimental new drug protocol in the execution earlier on Tuesday.

Not to be overly simplistic here but how hard is it to kill people humanely?  Don’t get me wrong.  The descriptions of what these two were sentenced to death for doesn’t engender pity or sympathy from me.  One of them writhes in pain?  Boo-effen-hoo.  What did their victims do?

My problem surrounding all this “botched execution” stems from the idea that we, as a society, need to be better, far better, than those we are legally killing.   We somehow manage to put down our pets humanely, when their time has come.  Why can’t those on death row just be “put to sleep?”   Surely this isn’t such a difficult process.